FACT mix 643: GILA

Based in Denver, Colorado, Kyle Reid (aka GILA, previously Gila Monsta) has been engineering unpredictable rap-influenced beats for longer than it might appear. While his debut solo 12″ was 2016’s XL-released Genkidama EP, he’s been releasing as part of rap duo Gorgeous Children (alongside Face Vega) since the early 2010s – the two even contributed a FACT mix back in 2013.

Last year, Reid dropped Pick Six on Benji B’s Deviation imprint and this year he dives even deeper into his own idiosyncratic blend of woozy cloud rap and cavernous warehouse techno with Shedskin Pt.33, the first release on his own Hunnaban Inc. Influenced by the filtered Atlanta blueprints of Mike Will Made It as much as M.E.S.H. and Lotic’s clubwise deconstructions, GILA’s new material shows an impressive layer of genre fluidity, never fitting snugly into one particular sound or other.

It’s not surprising, then, that his FACT mix is equally slippery. Alongside a healthy selection of his own material, Reid blends tracks from Lil Reek, DJ Shadow, Plump DJs, Hoodrich Pablo Juan, Pangaea, Gage and others, offering a mid-point between Europe’s bass-heavy club sounds and the neon bump of contemporary Southern rap.

GILA’s Shedskin Pt.33 12″ will be out on Hunnaban Inc. this month and can be pre-ordered now.